Good leaders need a positive agenda, not just an agenda of

The words of Michael Porter, “Good leaders need a positive agenda, not just an agenda of dealing with crisis,” shine with the wisdom of one who has studied the tides of power and the rise and fall of nations. He warns us that leadership is not merely the art of extinguishing fires, but the greater work of kindling vision. To respond to crisis is survival, but to craft a positive agenda is creation. One preserves what is, the other brings forth what might yet be.

The origin of this truth lies deep in the chronicles of history. Time and again, those rulers who governed only by reaction left their people weary and wandering, while those who dared to build beyond crisis shaped ages of prosperity. Leaders who rise above the storm do not see only the waves before them; they see the distant shore and steer their people toward it. Without such vision, a people drift, forever at the mercy of winds and fate.

Consider the story of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who inherited a nation crippled by the Great Depression. Many in his place might have focused only on the endless emergencies of hunger, joblessness, and despair. Yet Roosevelt offered more than rescue—he offered the New Deal, a positive agenda that built institutions, safeguarded workers, and reshaped the social fabric of America. In crisis, he did not merely react—he inspired, planting seeds of renewal that endured long after the storm had passed.

Porter’s words also speak to the temptation of smallness. To govern only by crisis is to be forever defensive, to allow circumstance to dictate destiny. But a positive agenda lifts the hearts of the people, gives them purpose beyond survival, and awakens in them the courage to labor for a future worth building. Such leadership transforms followers into partners and citizens into visionaries.

The lesson is clear: leaders are not remembered only for the crises they managed, but for the worlds they dared to imagine. The ones who endure in memory are those who built cathedrals of justice, roads of progress, and fields of hope, not merely those who patched the crumbling walls of their time.

Let this wisdom endure: in every age there will be crisis, but greatness belongs to those who carry a positive agenda, who lead not only in the darkness of the present but toward the dawn of what could be. For the true mark of leadership is not how one endures the storm, but how one uses it to chart a brighter horizon.